Our Challenge is:

Big Mother

What policies and approaches should schools have in place so that students know they are
supported by “Big Mother,” not snooped on by “Big Brother”?
Take the Challenge


  • Monitoring what students gain access to...
- do we trust students with unlimited access to internet or do we have specific monitors and records of what students access?
- out students need boundaries, filters... so some of the school based monitors such as specpro would be useful
- ultimately, there is not way to monitor everything
- education... facebook collates information about all its users ... we need to teach our students about how to manage our digital footprints. Parents need to be onside and educated too... identity theft is also an issue that needs to be addressed in discussing digital footprints.
- perhaps, in pastoral groups, students could be presented with guest speakers and education programs that teach students about the dangers of the internet
- we need to look at other schools and see what they have done to educate and monitor students
- our digital citizenship program needs to be done in each year... "digital licences"
- How much should we filter what the students do on their laptops? Teachers and students need to make moral judgements regarding what is accessed on line...
- How do we manage students who are found with inappropriate content?
- Education on basic morality is important... education on criminal behaviour online is important
- How do we protect teacher privacy? Students videoing or taping what teachers say in class and uploading to youtube... perhaps there needs to be control of digital devices in classes.
- a program called dyknow.com is another way of monitoring what students do in class WE NEED SOMETHING LIKE THIS